Image

28 September 2008

This post dedicated to the dearly grandmother which has been called by God to stay protected until the Judgment Day befalls…

It was early in the morning I woke up like usual especially during the weekends. Nothing weird, nothing unusual, stills the same view I see everyday. As I walked down the stairs, it was empty, no one was there but I still can sense someone’s presence a few minutes ago. I tried to searched, but found no one except my two brothers still sleeping. The usual option when in this kind of time, a phone call to my mum’s cell phone was made.

The first thing I heard upon saying hello is the shocking death of her. I totally was lost of words as I’m still gathering my strength to hold the phone and listen to my mum. Short after the call, I informed my sis and waited for my brothers to wake up to inform the sulky yet sadden news.

I spent the day trying to distract myself from having the ‘thoughts’ by washing mum’s car because tomorrow we are going back to mum’s village. Somehow it worked.In the evening, mum called as dad wants to speak with me. I said why? He asked me to come to the funeral. I okay-ed and quickly gets prepared and my youngest brother decided to tagged along.

Even though I never even know where the exact burial place is, I rushed to the place. Luck was at my side, or should I say maybe my grandma’s ‘remnants’ was calling my instinct to take a look at the road side and saw the convoy to the cemetery. I quickly turned and tracked down the convoy.

During at the burial ceremony, the vigil and cold atmosphere was clouding us. I just stared at her grave endlessly without any thoughts. Upon the Imam started the recital for the dead, in all of the sudden the memories of the past came into me. The things when I was still small and during Eid, now they are all getting back to me, how she treated me right after I arrived, feeding me with her cooking, just to make sure her lovely grandchildren was well fed and growing up nicely. She made sure that she had the original village’s chicken eggs in stock as she loved to let me ate it. When early in the morning, she will buy us plenty of ‘Nasi lemak’ and any other breakfast for us to eat. I still can remember she petted my head after she gave me some money during the Eid…

A few of these thoughts coming through my mind, it was unbearable as I slowly started shed tears during the ceremony. I tried my best to hold on, but still, it was flowing very slowly. I know, it is wrong to shed tears in front of the grave, but those thoughts were attacking me endlessly. I’m not sure whether my mum saw me or not, nut I hope no one does, as I didn’t even looked at anyone during that time.

After everything was done, it is time to head back. I took a final stare at grandma’s grave for the last time, hoping that she will be freed from this world’s pain and preparing herself for the heaven’s gate and resides with the almighty God forever.

As for us which were left living in this temporary world, life goes on and one day, we will be there, few feet under the earth. No one shall live forever. Dear grandma, I’ll be missing you. Hope dear God bless her soul and let her rest peacefully.

16 September 2008

It was drinking fuel like no tomorrow,It was spraying the engine bay with the engine oil like mad,It was never enough water inside the radiator,It was never able giving the power needed,It was… over 10 years old.

That sums up the overall story about Meteorain xD Yes, Meteorain was in a bad condition upon I got it from my dad. Although he serviced the car regularly, but he didn’t pay much attention to the car specifically. So as the new owner of Meteorain, it is my job to make sure this baby is taken care of =D

After a countless of complaints from me to dad, finally he agreed to do a full overhaul for Meteorain. Instead of sending the car to a normal workshop (that will chopped our head off with the service price >.> ), we sent the car to my dad’s friend as he was a mechanic before retiring (well, his daughter was my ex-classmate It took almost one week to get the job done and overall I was satisfied with the result. The fuel consumption was minimal, no more engine oil spilling, less worry on the water level in radiator, and giving me the power when I need it x)

Here is some of the list of the parts that was found faulty in Meteorain:-Blown gasket-Exhausted piston rings-Part of radiator was eaten by rust, thus leaking through that-Radiator hoses was already hard-Radiator cap was unable to control the pressure-Thin timing belt-One of the exhaust valve bent-Intake manifold and exhaust manifold was also infested with carbon-Super ultra thick carbon built up in the combustion chamber, pistons and around the valves-Leaking in some valves, they unable to close properlyAnd… I’m not sure if I still left something else out =p

Anyway, as usual we will let the pictures do the talking =)

Preparing for the job

Air filter was taken out, the carburettor was exposed

Ewww filthy lol. The top engine cover was removed. The rocker arms and the valves are visible

The almost-dead timing belt

Checked the brake pads, still a lot. Worried after went down the Genting x)

Overall view for the engine block

A zoom in the combustion chamber with piston at the furthest position

A closeup with the full stretched piston in the combustion chamber

The valves. This is a 12 valves engine. 2 valves for fuel, 1 valve for smoke

A closeup. The spark plug can be seen there

An emptied engine block

Zoom in the combustion chamber without the piston. The crankshaft can be seen

The side view of the piston

Top view of the piston

Full view of the piston together with the conrod

The entire 4 pistons

Crankshaft view from below

A normal valve

The valve springs

The damaged valve. Might hard to see in the picture though

The top engine block. The camshaft can be seen here

The process of washing the top engine block

Reassemble the valves, camshaft, and the rocker arms back to its place after done cleaning

The cleaned valves and engine block

The part of radiator which broken due to rust

Assembling the top engine block and the broken radiator part

Finally... finished =D

Reborn Meteorain shall pwned you anytime =p

On a side note, i should reserve some money to replace the battery and the alternator soon ~_~

10 September 2008

Yeah, finally I’m employed by a web-related company somewhere near Kuala Lumpur =D Now i'm not contributing to the unemployment rate in Malaysia (Kitleen 2008)... (Haha, my old habit of citation and referencing came from doing the FYP last time =p ) The pay was quite ok for beginners like me and I’ll be exposing a lot with the servers environment. To be exact, I should say that from today onwards I’ll be only interacting with the servers and less with humans >.>

One of the server aka 1U

The first day was quite busy, the first thing upon early in the morning I had to setup 2 servers for delivery. Lucky it was only Windows Server 2003, so the installation went out pretty smooth. But I guess I need to learn how to install the Linux OS as my company will be using Cent OS for any client that prefer Linux as their operating system ~_~

The view of the server racks in the datacenter. Center far in the picture is one of the massive air conditioner >.<

Right after that, my first ever visit to a datacenter at Brickfields with one of my colleague =D The security was pretty tight and troublesome .>

One of our server rack filled with client's server.

So far the job is ok. It was busy on the first day and my legs almost fell off x_x I’ll be looking forward for another new adventure to another datacenters at Cyberjaya next time xD

07 September 2008

Part 1As usual, the notorious Ryosuke never ceased to amaze us with his sudden godforsaken attic, the sudden plan =p A few days after the nightmare ride to Kuala Kelawang touge, Ryosuke called “Yo cloud, tonight we’ll hit the touge at mantin!!!” and my usual reply “What the *censored*!!!”

This time we used Meteorain as the method of transportation. Due to the horrid nightmare adventure where we were clueless about the exact location of the touge, this time I personally brought my laptop that comes with Google Earth installed >.> Thanks to the Google Earth, the journey went out smoothly without any problem and relying on the good-for-nothing Ryosuke >.>

Look, my Meteorain is equipped with a LCD monitor =D

Nah... it was just my laptop =p Navigating the roads using Google Earth

Anyway, as been mentioned, the journey went smoothly due to the help from Google Earth. We decided to take an alternative road to there using Broga, the road heading to the Nottingham University. I guess it was a bad choice as the road was in a very bad condition x_x Nevertheless, we managed to arrive safely at the touge spot =D

Overview of touge at Mantin using Google Earth

Mantin is located in Negeri Sembilan where beside the Negeri Sembilan and Selangor border. This touge course located at the Matin Industrial centre to be exact. The course actually was quite beautiful as there are a few hairpins corner waiting for any touge enthusiast to tackle it. But… the bad thing here is the animals that tend to sleep in the middle of the road >__< During our journey, a dog was sleeping in the middle of the road. When we passed it, the dog still decided to sleep in the middle of the road x_x Besides that, there are a few traffics there, so need to pay extra attention. The course itself was quite short but very enjoying nevertheless =)

As usual, some memento before leaving =p

PART 2A few days after, Ryosuke again decided to visit mantin touge, but this time with FC and Metorain as an escort. Turbo Jr decided to join the adventure this time. All of us taking turn in the FC attacking the touge. 2 of us board the FC while another 2 will stay back at Meteorain. This time even more surprise greeted us on the touge. The dog still sleeping in the middle of the road, plus a group of dogs relaxing on the road, and 3 FREAKING COWS sleeping on the road too x___X It was so dangerous! In the end, we touge with a little bit reserved in speed.

Anyway, during Keisuke turn, shit happen. We ran into a police car lol. The police just passed by us and at the same time we tried to contact Ryosuke to warn about the incoming police, but failed because there is no freaking telephone coverage there. After a while, Keisuke and I decided to go back and hoping the police was already gone. Upon reaching the area, the police was still there x_x Keisuke had a brilliant idea “Lets pretend we don’t know them!” xD So we acted we never knew them… upon passing by, Ryosuke blasted out cover by calling us x__X Oh well, both Keisuke and I decided to stop. Then the police car passed by us and went on left us. Phew… trouble gone. Ryosuke drove to us. It was learnt that the police was asking Ryosuke what they are doing there. He answered he was waiting for his friends at the back (us =p ). So they were waiting for us actually. If both Keisuke and I were just totally ignored Ryosuke, they would already end up in the police cell that night xDDD

Sending Turbo Jr back home after the tiring and suspense touge adventure

Whatever, we decided to head back since the police disturbance and I didn’t had the chance to tackle the corners due to the police >_< Oh well, maybe next time then =)

04 September 2008

Yes, finally I’m back after the gruesome battles with countless of projects and final year project which so close with each other x_x

The final day. My FYP on the bottom left. Almost 200 pages of work x_x

It was hell, a living hell which you don’t want to experience in your life. By the time clocked only 2 more weeks before my final semester ended, the work just kept on falling till I have no more enough hands to do all the work. If I were able to use my feet to write, it would be much better >_>

The aftermath after battling during the final day of submission at the university xD

Anyway, it was my own fault because I procrastinated too much, hahaha =p So as the battle drawing its curtain down, I’m now need to start my job hunting as I’m right now contributing to Malaysia’s unemployment rate (stealing idea from Kitleen’s blog =p ). So far right now I already attend one interview yesterday. The outcome seems ok but I need to wait the confirmation from the big boss whether I can work with them with my lack of skills =p Anyway, I’m trying my best as this is the time I want to fight for my dreams and starts buying things that I ever dream of. What is it? Haha let it be a secret for the time being =p